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The Rational Response Squad is a group of atheist activists who impact society by changing the way we view god belief. This site is a haven for those who are pushing back against the norm, and a place for believers of gods to have their beliefs exposed as false should they want to try their hand at confronting us.

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Why the god/God concept is broken as a claim. OP/ED

To those who have rightfully left behind the idea of a disembodied super hero in the clouds, this is for the people who still insist the case must be.

There are multiple levels in which, what is merely in reality our projection of our own desires, in which the people who insist such is the case, that do not logically follow. Scientifically is a no brainer for those who have left all sorts of sky daddy claims who have accepted the reality that this is all there is.

BUT for those who still insist there must be some divine "creator" "inventor" or "cause" who has unlimited power, I have yet to see any credible argument, even outside science and merely on a moral level. Outside the lack of evidence, this is albatross that looms large for any human arguing the divine anywhere around the world in every country.

No one likes to be held back by force. Everyone strives to gain resources and questioning how things work is how we better understand the resources we use, it even tells us long term, how to cooperate with each other or dominate a hurdle in our way. Our delusions often get us stuck in our wishful thinking and predilections and if one looks at human history, no matter one's label today, they can look back at the ancient past to something they don't buy personally and say "I cant believe they bought that".

Now, the common concept of a god is that it is the apex, nothing is higher and it is the final "ref" if you are watering him down, or the final "law maker" whom you cant remove from office. In evolution in every species, there is a drive to be on top. Being on top means more resources, and more opportunity to reproduce. That is science however. I want to deal with the simply moral bankruptcy of any god claim.

"I am being oppressed" is the cry from the Muslim, the Jew and the Christian. It is even a battle between Indians in Cashmere. It is the battle between Buddhists in Tibet vs the Buddhists of the communist party in China.

Why do humans cling to a belief that puts them as the subordinate? For the same reason your mom and dad cant do anything wrong, even if they do lots of things wrong in reality. It is why we side to that we are sold and that which brings us comfort, even if what is sold to us is false. God/god belief works, not because invisible friends are real, but humans like the idea of being protected, like we evolved having our parents protect us.

OUTSIDE THAT THOUGH, the worst part of god claims is the moral aspect. Once you set up your god as the apex, it cannot fall. In reality all life falls and all humans die. What makes the god/God concept broken isn't just about the lack of scientific evidence. It is the idea that someone else determines our fate and good or bad, we have no say, and this entity, give it any name you want, owes us no explanation. In reality in the civil west that type of thinking does not fly. Our current election in America has both parties questioning and blaspheming both Romney and Obama. I am quite sure neither wants the other to gain absolute power, and I agree.

So how does one mentally square an unmovable apex power with the way we want to live in reality? How does one worship a a God you cant debate with or impeach or remove from office if it fucks up? If a God cannot make mistakes, then the title "all powerful" is a broken concept. But even beyond that immoral considering the fans of such claims say he is our "all powerful" protector.

Yet there has never been one period in human evolution that has not had violence or war or death, not to mention everyone dies. It seems like tons of drama a dictator wants to merely bring attention to themselves. It does not seem like a compassionate plan. When a child gets murdered, they are with God. If a child gets saved God was watching. But children worldwide die by the millions every year by disease, famine, war and crime. It seems a bit inept or malicious.

Skeptics know the real reason bad things happen, this is not a question for them. This is for anyone who claims Jesus, or Allah or Yahweh or even "Karma".

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

Excuse me, "pay people" to torture animals? I do it myself fuckwad. At least for the most part, I do occasionally order food at restaurants, but everything in my freezer I killed myself.

Which brings about another interesting question.

I lived in rural Pennsylvania for a time. Some local hunters considered eating what you killed as an ethical thing, while killing for the sake of killing to be highly unethical.

For instance, I knew a guy owned a LOT of land in that area and would only allow people to hunt if they actually ATE what they killed.

Same thing with small farmers that argued their animals were not living in horrifying and deplorable conditions, therefore their practice was ethical.

I didn't realize there was this division among hunters and meat eaters until I lived out in the country for a little while.

What is your stand on that Beyond ?

I know that the penalty for killing "too many deer" can be high in Pennsylvania.

Especially spotlighting. There were some guys that got caught spotlighting deers (for those that don't know, spotlighting is putting a floodlight on a deer, which causes it to freeze up and make it an easy kill) when I was living there. They got their hunting licenses revoked, their guns taken away and the pick-up truck got confiscated.

I don't know about all the other states, but PA is real hard on out of season hunting and spotlighting. At least it was back then.

In Mississippi, closer to where I live now, spotlighting causes you to lose your trucks, your guns and licenses permanently.

Do you hunt as well as farm ? What do you do with your kills ?

I know the vegans would are going to be dead set against any type of animal killing, but I did not know that hunters had divisions about it.

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno

Excuse me, "pay people" to torture animals? I do it myself fuckwad. At least for the most part, I do occasionally order food at restaurants

Yes, I'm the fuckwad while you deny my allegation and then confirm it in the next sentence, bravo.

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but everything in my freezer I killed myself. I don't eat that low quality shit in the grocery store. But yes, I do believe the world is a slightly more pleasant place to live with me in it than it would be without me. Not a better place for a tasty little pig or lamb but a better place for many people.

Yeah, cos pigs and lambs aren't part of the world. Your welfare only matters if you don't have a tail and can do math. How much suffering you're capable of feeling is entirely irrelevant. Once again, bravo.

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I don't think there would be any moral value to putting my hamburger down. If you could convince me there was, I would.

ANY value? For this to be true you'd have to literally put no value whatsoever to animal suffering, in which case you really are an A+ immoral asshole, but I really don't believe even a cunt like you can honestly hold that view.

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If the only reason you don't kill yourself is fear of death and pain you are a coward.

Oh well that justifies it then. If I create a sentient being from scratch and it ends up experiencing constant, unbearable suffering, that's totally fine as long as I programmed it to be afraid of killing itself. Then I can just go "lol ure just a pussy" and pat myself on the back for being ethical.

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It would be like me being outside a burning building and knowing a kid was in there and deciding not to go in and try to save the kid because I was afraid of getting burnt or dying. If you sit there and listen to the kid scream as they burn alive you are a fucking coward.

Ok, but this has nothing to do with suicide.

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The pain is easy to get around.

I didn't argue anything about the pain, I'm perfectly aware of numerous suicide methods that should be mostly or entirely painless and so is everyone else who bothers googling it.

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All you have to do is get around your psychology, as someone who has knowingly risked my life to do what I believed was the right thing it isn't that hard to get around.

Not remotely the same thing, and even if it were, it really doesn't help anyone else how awesome your fear management skills are.

Beyond Saving wrote:

I don't believe you are imposing grave harm, you are the one arguing that.

Antinatalism is about arguing that creating a new person is an ethical violation against them, not necessarily the rest of the world. I will personally argue that a fuckton of people are a negative influence on others too, but this is a separate subject from AN. I don't have a problem arguing both, but you need to understand you're not making an argument against AN when you argue whether or not someone's current existence is harmful.

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Maybe it doesn't make my selfish assholery more acceptable, but just because I am a selfish asshole by your metric, how does that excuse you being a selfish asshole?

It doesn't? The child molester and the wife beater can both call each other assholes and both can be right, and none of that makes either one's actions less wrong. If you think I'm being an asshole about something then you're free to argue why, you might even be right but that still wouldn't mean I'm doing something wrong when I point out other people's assholery.

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I am not the one complaining about other people existing, I don't care one way or the other and I don't consider their existence a negative. You are the one complaining about it and apparently the only reason you continue to exist and cause suffering is because other people do it too. You are being immoral by your own standard simply because others are?

I'm not arguing about other people's current existence, I'm arguing about whether they should create more people, and about how they treat each other and other sentient creatures. If you had your own private planet where you couldn't affect anyone else, I would have zero interest in what you decide to do.

I lived in rural Pennsylvania for a time. Some local hunters considered eating what you killed as an ethical thing, while killing for the sake of killing to be highly unethical.

For instance, I knew a guy owned a LOT of land in that area and would only allow people to hunt if they actually ATE what they killed.

Same thing with small farmers that argued their animals were not living in horrifying and deplorable conditions, therefore their practice was ethical.

I didn't realize there was this division among hunters and meat eaters until I lived out in the country for a little while.

What is your stand on that Beyond ?

I don't think it is necessarily unethical to not eat what you kill, it may be wasteful. I don't eat everything I kill personally, I give away a lot of meat, I feed my dog etc. I do try to use as much of the animals I kill as I can, I either sell the hides or tan them myself to make leather because I enjoy leather working during the off season but I don't really consider it an ethical question.

I bowhunt a lot and part of bow hunting is that from time to time you will kill an animal and be unable to find it because usually they do not die in sight. I know some people get really upset about it and consider it "wasted", I don't. Two weeks later you might finally find the remains and they will be a pile of bones and fur and everything else eaten by the variety of carrion eaters that exist. Vultures need to eat too. I do however consider it a tag filled and don't use the license if I am hunting an animal the DNR has imposed limits on. So any animal I believe will die I consider a filled tag even if I am unable to recover it- which is rare but it does happen.

harleysportster wrote:

I know that the penalty for killing "too many deer" can be high in Pennsylvania.

Especially spotlighting. There were some guys that got caught spotlighting deers (for those that don't know, spotlighting is putting a floodlight on a deer, which causes it to freeze up and make it an easy kill) when I was living there. They got their hunting licenses revoked, their guns taken away and the pick-up truck got confiscated.

I don't know about all the other states, but PA is real hard on out of season hunting and spotlighting. At least it was back then.

In Mississippi, closer to where I live now, spotlighting causes you to lose your trucks, your guns and licenses permanently.

I am very strict about following game limits even when I don't always agree with the number the DNR comes up with simply because over hunting can cause problems with the game populations in the future, so while that one extra deer for me probably doesn't matter at all, if everyone killed one extra it would be a real problem in the future. Fortunately, there are a lot of states and a lot of hunting opportunities so when I fill my Ohio licences it is not a big deal to hop over to Kentucky and Indiana. My folks still live in Wisconsin so I head up there to hunt with my dad at least once a year and up there you can buy as many deer licenses as you want because they have a serious overpopulation problem. They limit the number that can be sold on a first come first serve basis but the areas I hunt with my dad never run out.

harleysportster wrote:

Do you hunt as well as farm ? What do you do with your kills ?

Mostly I hunt, I buy a cow, a pig and a lamb every year because I like variety with my meat. I usually split the cow with a few people because it is a lot of meat and I split the pig 50/50 with a friend because pigs are a pain in the ass to butcher and I like to share the misery. When the bacon runs out I always regret not keeping the whole pig for myself. When I share my bacon, that means I really love you.

harleysportster wrote:

I know the vegans would are going to be dead set against any type of animal killing, but I did not know that hunters had divisions about it.

Hunters can be some of the worst. Especially when it comes to "ethics" like whether or not spotlighting is ethical, scent lock suits, various gadgets that enhance your weapon, certain weapons- for example many hunters consider crossbows unethical because it supposedly makes it too easy (obviously they never hunted with a crossbow) they argue whether or not it is ethical to shoot a turkey that is roosted, or a deer over a pile of bait, whether it matters if the bait was placed by you or is a naturally occurring food source. It gets ridiculous, and hunters get very passionate over their positions and often make them into laws.

Personally, my attitude is hunt in whatever way you want. If you want to have a super modern weapon and shoot an animal over a pile of bait while wearing clothes that prevent any of your scent from reaching the animal so that you are virtually guaranteed to shoot your animal on the very first morning, I don't care. I actually kind of prefer it when hunting public land because I prefer to not run into other hunters so the earlier you are gone the sooner I have the land to myself.

I don't like all the super modern stuff because I enjoy the process of the hunt more than the kill itself. When I was younger I enjoyed the kill the most, at 15 I did everything I could to kill as many animals as quickly and easily as possible. Now I find the kill kind of sad because the hunt is over. I have no problems with hunters deciding what methods are best for them because I remember when killing a deer was a thrilling experience. Now it isn't such a big deal. I used to know exactly how many deer I killed, now I don't have a clue.

My favorite way to hunt now is to use a handmade wood recurve bow with some dental floss tied at the tip to tell me which way the wind is blowing. I don't like tree stands and generally don't have the patience to sit on a trail or by bait so my primary method is to creep through the woods, spot the animal and stalk it. It makes it necessary to get very close to have a successful kill (most of my kills are 30-60 feet) and is a difficult form of hunting that most people can't do and honestly, far more deer run away without ever being shot at than I kill. But I'm not going to judge anyone else based on how they hunt or because I believe they hunt in a way that is somehow "unfair" or "too easy". Crawling on my hands and knees hurts a lot more now than it used to and I imagine in another twenty years or so I might decide it hurts too much and sit in a treestand with a lazyboy chair, a cup holder and a weapon capable of killing at a couple hundred yards. To each their own. I think it is more of a question of preference than one of ethics, however that position makes me a minority in the hunting community. Everyone thinks they hunt the "right" way and everyone else should hunt the same way, so lets make a regulation.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X

I lived in rural Pennsylvania for a time. Some local hunters considered eating what you killed as an ethical thing, while killing for the sake of killing to be highly unethical.

Eating what you hunt will reduce how much factory farm produced meat you'll buy so that seems like a clear win to me. I wouldn't argue just killing animals for no practical reason is unethical though.

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Especially spotlighting. There were some guys that got caught spotlighting deers (for those that don't know, spotlighting is putting a floodlight on a deer, which causes it to freeze up and make it an easy kill) when I was living there. They got their hunting licenses revoked, their guns taken away and the pick-up truck got confiscated.

Hilarious, can you imagine if we punished murderers differently based on how hard it was for them to kill their victim?

I don't think there would be any moral value to putting my hamburger down. If you could convince me there was, I would.

ANY value? For this to be true you'd have to literally put no value whatsoever to animal suffering, in which case you really are an A+ immoral asshole, but I really don't believe even a cunt like you can honestly hold that view.

Believe it. I have zero ethical qualms with eating a hamburger. We have already established that you think I am an immoral asshole. Thanks for the A+.

Manageri wrote:

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If the only reason you don't kill yourself is fear of death and pain you are a coward.

Oh well that justifies it then. If I create a sentient being from scratch and it ends up experiencing constant, unbearable suffering, that's totally fine as long as I programmed it to be afraid of killing itself. Then I can just go "lol ure just a pussy" and pat myself on the back for being ethical.

Huh? If you kill yourself you can't create another sentient being. I'm saying that following your stated morality it is unethical to not kill yourself. So no, you can't pat yourself on the back because you are still alive and then you can't pat yourself on the back because you are dead so you will never know what it feels like to pat yourself on the back for being ethical.

Manageri wrote:

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It would be like me being outside a burning building and knowing a kid was in there and deciding not to go in and try to save the kid because I was afraid of getting burnt or dying. If you sit there and listen to the kid scream as they burn alive you are a fucking coward.

Ok, but this has nothing to do with suicide.

It has everything to do with being willing to accept pain and death to do the ethical thing.

Manageri wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

I don't believe you are imposing grave harm, you are the one arguing that.

Antinatalism is about arguing that creating a new person is an ethical violation against them, not necessarily the rest of the world. I will personally argue that a fuckton of people are a negative influence on others too, but this is a separate subject from AN. I don't have a problem arguing both, but you need to understand you're not making an argument against AN when you argue whether or not someone's current existence is harmful.

I'm not arguing against AN in general, I am arguing specifically in the context of your worldview and how you arrived at your AN position. I made another post where I listed a number of reasons why someone with an AN belief could rationally come to the conclusion that they shouldn't kill themselves. With your specific argument you have made in this thread, those arguments are inconsistent.

Manageri wrote:

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Maybe it doesn't make my selfish assholery more acceptable, but just because I am a selfish asshole by your metric, how does that excuse you being a selfish asshole?

It doesn't? The child molester and the wife beater can both call each other assholes and both can be right, and none of that makes either one's actions less wrong. If you think I'm being an asshole about something then you're free to argue why, you might even be right but that still wouldn't mean I'm doing something wrong when I point out other people's assholery.

I'm not arguing you are an asshole, I am pointing out that using your definition of morality you are an asshole. So you admit that just because I am an asshole under your morality that doesn't make you being an asshole as well any less wrong. Then why are you continuing to be an asshole?

Manageri wrote:

I'm not arguing about other people's current existence, I'm arguing about whether they should create more people, and about how they treat each other and other sentient creatures. If you had your own private planet where you couldn't affect anyone else, I would have zero interest in what you decide to do.

Your not? This entire thread you have been crying about how much suffering there is in the world and if people ceased existing that would eliminate suffering. So sticking to your stated morality

P1- suffering is bad and should be avoided at any cost

P2- people cause suffering by existing

C1- Therefore, it is best if people cease existing.

Which brings about

P1- it is best if people cease existing

P2- you are a person

C2- therefore, it is best if you stop existing

Where is the logic wrong? Are you saying that you don't cause suffering and never will? Even if you could somehow argue that you cause zero suffering to other sentient beings now every day you exist causes the risk that you might cause suffering. Since you like extreme scenarios, every day there is a risk you might develop a brain tumor. People with brain tumors can experience radical personality changes, so you might go on a torturing rampage and cause all sorts of suffering or you might just eat a hamburger or you might fuck a woman and get her pregnant. What kind of an asshole are you that you would impose that risk onto everyone around you?

If it is wrong for me to have a kid because there is a small chance that kid will end up in a dungeon, I don't see how you justify your continued existence when there is a small chance you will cause significant suffering.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X

Well, it's interesting because they obviously don't follow the same paths to arrive at their ethics. Some saying current life is OK, some say they would die if only it wasn't painful/scary, some say that suicide would be stupid, some dismiss the question out of hand and the last one is just a rant that doesn't have anything to do with the question.

Honestly, it makes me lean harder on the idea that AN isn't based on logic, it just seems like an emotional argument based on individual preference. Interestingly, I think Menageri has used most of these arguments, in sequence, in this very discussion.

Right, so if three people give you different reasons why it's a bad idea to throw the butter knife throught the window you'll conclude they're all full of shit? If one says repairing the window will cost money, one says he needs the knife to scratch his back, and one says you might hit the bear behind the window and make it maul the shit out of you all like a PMSing barbarian, then clearly it's a good idea for you to throw the knife? Yeah, we're the ones with shitty logic here, clearly. I might respond to the rest of this later if I find something worthwhile I haven't covered yet, but I have a hangover that needs fixing atm.

It's interesting, because you're arguing from an ethical standpoint. Ethics is a logical thing, if it wasn't logical then it isn't ethics, it's just preference.

If you were on here saying that AN was your preference, and you would prefer people didn't have kids and you didn't want to have kids, I'd be fine with it. No problems. You can do whatever you want and prefer whatever you want. But you aren't doing that, you're making a claim that AN is a logical, ethical thing to do. That's where this kind of thing points out the absurdity of claiming AN is based on logic or ethics, because a group of AN folks can't even agree on why they do what they do. It isn't, it's just a preference justified after the fact, at least as near as I can tell. And me pointing this out is a fallacy, but I've already argued against why I think AN, as communicated, is illogical in it's conclusions. Hell, if An just said new life = bad, then your conclusions about no new life would be logical. It's the part where you try to bring suffering in as the reason for saying new life = bad that fails, because of what you do and don't do with that premise.

At this point, honestly, I'm just poking you with a stick for giggles though.

It seems to me that the only rational arguments an AN can make for not committing suicide are

#1 My life isn't bad, but if a new person is born there is x% chance that they will experience tremendous suffering, so me killing myself doesn't improve anything but having a kid could potentially cause significant harm so it is immoral to take that risk. Kind of like it would be immoral to put a single bullet in a revolver, spin it, point at a person and pull the trigger. The fact that most of the time nothing bad will happen does not mitigate the potential damage done if the bullet fires.

#2 All I have to do is convince two people in my lifetime that AN is the way to go. If I can prevent two new lives from being born, I am making up for the suffering caused by my one life. I am making the sacrifice of my own suffering for the benefit of humanity as a whole.

#3 I like myself, I just don't like other people. (Obviously doesn't mesh with our local AN's argument against subjectivity, but I'm sure AN can be arrived at through a subjective argument.)

#4 I'm a wimp and too cowardly to kill myself even though I know it would be the moral thing to do.

1. I agree, but then they aren't AN. Maybe they should fork their philosophy. At least this is something you could make consistent. Menageri won't like it though, we've all told him the same thing.

2. That might apply, but you'd need some way to do the math because of the animal factor. It would get pretty complicated.

3. You could do this, but to arrive at AN ethically from this standpoint would create a morality that has some pretty far out stuff. AN would probably be the least of it, and I imagine someone would kill you.

4. Bingo. Or:

4a. I just talk about AN because it's emo and I'm sad. I don't really want to exterminate life, I just want to be happy.

Frank says it's wrong because he never wanted cake, and you can't force him to eat it, so there.

Mary sue says it's OK to eat cake if you already have cake, but you can't make cake, or ask for cake, because then that would be wrong.

Barbara says she'd throw the cake away, but then she'd feel bad about wasting it, so she might as well eat it, but she won't like eating it.

Bob says cake is bad because some people don't get good cake sometimes, so no-one should eat cake ever again.

That group of people just doesn't like cake. Any argument that tries to justify their personal, subjective preference to dislike cake with a complex logical/ethical argument is probably horseshit.

Stop.......stop...... it hurts

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X

Frank says it's wrong because he never wanted cake, and you can't force him to eat it, so there.

Mary sue says it's OK to eat cake if you already have cake, but you can't make cake, or ask for cake, because then that would be wrong.

Barbara says she'd throw the cake away, but then she'd feel bad about wasting it, so she might as well eat it, but she won't like eating it.

Bob says cake is bad because some people don't get good cake sometimes, so no-one should eat cake ever again.

That group of people just doesn't like cake. Any argument that tries to justify their personal, subjective preference to dislike cake with a complex logical/ethical argument is probably horseshit.

Well to be fair, I was just pointing out some of the rebuttals that I had found.

I was unable to find an actual AN organization, an AN spokesperson or an AN philosophy page.

I found some YouTube vids (Gary Imendenham being the main one) and the comments that followed. I found some AN blogs. I found some AN books (Schopenhauer was often quoted, Thomas Liggoti's : Conspiracy against the Human Race was often quoted, and Benatar's : Better to have never existed was often quoted.

I don't think that AN actually has an official position ( other than for people to stop breeding and that non-existence is preferable). I know there was also a lot of anger directed towards utilitarianism. ( I am not sure what that is and would have to read more about it). But I think that AN, is simply the position that breeding is an imposition.

Gary's main themes ( check out GloomBoomDoom channel) seemed to be about bringing more life into an already overpopulated word as being a bad thing. (Now, I didn't get a chance to watch all of them, there are over five hundred). But his main synopsis is here :

It is short and fairly straight to the point. Gary seems to be the main youtube AN.

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno

Especially spotlighting. There were some guys that got caught spotlighting deers (for those that don't know, spotlighting is putting a floodlight on a deer, which causes it to freeze up and make it an easy kill) when I was living there. They got their hunting licenses revoked, their guns taken away and the pick-up truck got confiscated.

Hilarious, can you imagine if we punished murderers differently based on how hard it was for them to kill their victim?

I hadn't thought of it that way until you brought it up.

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno

Especially spotlighting. There were some guys that got caught spotlighting deers (for those that don't know, spotlighting is putting a floodlight on a deer, which causes it to freeze up and make it an easy kill) when I was living there. They got their hunting licenses revoked, their guns taken away and the pick-up truck got confiscated.

Hilarious, can you imagine if we punished murderers differently based on how hard it was for them to kill their victim?

I hadn't thought of it that way until you brought it up.

The basic idea is how "sporting" the event is. It's interesting to think about the genesis of the idea...maybe just the innate human preference for fair play? Because hunting really is play to most modern hunters. Obviously it isn't play to the critters.

Maybe, psychologically, it's about suffering to achieve your goal...like, if you don't suffer at all in your hunt then the victory isn't as fulfilling?

I've hunted and I've killed animals large and small, but I never caught the hunting bug like many do, or like Beyond has. So I can't really examine my own emotions about it. Hunting wasn't ever fun for me. It was often exhilarating, and there was pride in accomplishing something after all that work, and there was a massive dose of social/familial pride, but I'd rather read a good book if left to my own devices. I think hunting was too much suffering for too little payoff, in my case. It's been...a long stretch of years since I've hunted. I can't remember the last time.

I plan to take my children hunting though, at least once, for a large game animal. I think it is something worth experiencing, to kill your own food and actually *see* and participate in the whole process. It wouldn't bother me if they decided to be vegans afterwords though, any more than it would bother me if they caught the bug and started killing critters all the time.

It’s a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.

Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.

Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.

When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.

It’s going to take all of us going.

(I am guessing VHEMT is anti-natalist. Although I do not see the word Anti-Natalist on any of their pages thus far.)

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno

Frank says it's wrong because he never wanted cake, and you can't force him to eat it, so there.

Mary sue says it's OK to eat cake if you already have cake, but you can't make cake, or ask for cake, because then that would be wrong.

Barbara says she'd throw the cake away, but then she'd feel bad about wasting it, so she might as well eat it, but she won't like eating it.

Bob says cake is bad because some people don't get good cake sometimes, so no-one should eat cake ever again.

That group of people just doesn't like cake. Any argument that tries to justify their personal, subjective preference to dislike cake with a complex logical/ethical argument is probably horseshit.

Well to be fair, I was just pointing out some of the rebuttals that I had found.

I was unable to find an actual AN organization, an AN spokesperson or an AN philosophy page.

I found some YouTube vids (Gary Imendenham being the main one) and the comments that followed. I found some AN blogs. I found some AN books (Schopenhauer was often quoted, Thomas Liggoti's : Conspiracy against the Human Race was often quoted, and Benatar's : Better to have never existed was often quoted.

I don't think that AN actually has an official position ( other than for people to stop breeding and that non-existence is preferable). I know there was also a lot of anger directed towards utilitarianism. ( I am not sure what that is and would have to read more about it). But I think that AN, is simply the position that breeding is an imposition.

Gary's main themes ( check out GloomBoomDoom channel) seemed to be about bringing more life into an already overpopulated word as being a bad thing. (Now, I didn't get a chance to watch all of them, there are over five hundred). But his main synopsis is here :

It is short and fairly straight to the point. Gary seems to be the main youtube AN.

Interesting. I thought it was more monolithic. Like I told Menageri, I don't have any problem with AN, unless you try to make an ethical defense of it. Once you do that then it needs to stand up to logical scrutiny, and I don't see that, for the reasons outlined in the whole discussion.

If someone just doesn't like it when other folks have kids, fine. I don't like it when people eat with their mouths open, but I wouldn't try to make a system of morality based on that premise...if I did, I'd certainly have some smartass on RRS asking me hard questions about the actual implications of an anti-mouth-open-chewing system of morality.

The basic idea is how "sporting" the event is. It's interesting to think about the genesis of the idea...maybe just the innate human preference for fair play? Because hunting really is play to most modern hunters. Obviously it isn't play to the critters.

Maybe, psychologically, it's about suffering to achieve your goal...like, if you don't suffer at all in your hunt then the victory isn't as fulfilling?

The modern concept of fair chase originated in the late 1800's as a number of animal populations were getting low due to over hunting. There were no laws in regard to hunting at all. Some hunters recognized that it was necessary to manage the populations of game animals so they created hunting clubs like the Boone & Crockett club for the purpose of encouraging good wildlife management practices. Such clubs encouraged ethics primarily designed to minimize the effect of hunting on game populations such as encouraging the shooting of mature males, avoiding hunting during times of the year the game animals are birthing, limiting the number of animals taken, taking care of the ecosystem etc.

In the early 1900's states started passing laws to regulate hunting seasons, game limits etc. and began to actively manage game populations. Since then the concept has evolved and is mostly a hodgepodge of personal ideas of fairness that can vary wildly depending on where you are. For example, many hunters in northern states consider it unethical to hunt turkeys with a dog, while in south eastern states it is a generally accepted practice. Having hunted turkeys both with and without a dog, I believe it is significantly harder to hunt with the dog simply because of the amount of time and effort that is spent training the dog- which is very enjoyable but a lot more complex than teaching the dog basic commands like "sit" "stay" "here". Yet hunting turkeys with dogs remains illegal in most states.

In my experience, most hunters get their sense of fair chase from whoever taught them how to hunt and are simply convinced that their way is the right way and anything else is unfair. Since the original rational purpose for hunting ethics has become pointless with hunting regulations, hunting ethics have become increasingly irrational. And like any irrational ideas, they get defended and pushed aggressively by people who think they are right but can never answer the question of "why?" with anything other than an appeal to emotion.

Plus, there is the testosterone filled pissing contest of hunters trying to be more macho than the other guys which brings in record book organizations which often have a number of rules about how an animal must be taken to qualify.

edit: I should also point out that many of the modern ideas of hunting ethics are based on politics and a desire to have a positive public image with non-hunters out of the fear that hunters might give anti-hunters fodder to ban hunting. However, I don't think there are nearly enough anti-hunters in the US to ban any hunting in our lifetimes. Most of the time when a hunting season, technique or animal is banned it is hunters who are pushing the ban for their own selfish reasons. Ironically, the biggest threat to the freedom to hunt is hunters.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X

The basic idea is how "sporting" the event is. It's interesting to think about the genesis of the idea...maybe just the innate human preference for fair play? Because hunting really is play to most modern hunters. Obviously it isn't play to the critters.

Maybe, psychologically, it's about suffering to achieve your goal...like, if you don't suffer at all in your hunt then the victory isn't as fulfilling?

The modern concept of fair chase originated in the late 1800's as a number of animal populations were getting low due to over hunting. There were no laws in regard to hunting at all. Some hunters recognized that it was necessary to manage the populations of game animals so they created hunting clubs like the Boone & Crockett club for the purpose of encouraging good wildlife management practices. Such clubs encouraged ethics primarily designed to minimize the effect of hunting on game populations such as encouraging the shooting of mature males, avoiding hunting during times of the year the game animals are birthing, limiting the number of animals taken, taking care of the ecosystem etc.

In the early 1900's states started passing laws to regulate hunting seasons, game limits etc. and began to actively manage game populations. Since then the concept has evolved and is mostly a hodgepodge of personal ideas of fairness that can vary wildly depending on where you are. For example, many hunters in northern states consider it unethical to hunt turkeys with a dog, while in south eastern states it is a generally accepted practice. Having hunted turkeys both with and without a dog, I believe it is significantly harder to hunt with the dog simply because of the amount of time and effort that is spent training the dog- which is very enjoyable but a lot more complex than teaching the dog basic commands like "sit" "stay" "here". Yet hunting turkeys with dogs remains illegal in most states.

In my experience, most hunters get their sense of fair chase from whoever taught them how to hunt and are simply convinced that their way is the right way and anything else is unfair. Since the original rational purpose for hunting ethics has become pointless with hunting regulations, hunting ethics have become increasingly irrational. And like any irrational ideas, they get defended and pushed aggressively by people who think they are right but can never answer the question of "why?" with anything other than an appeal to emotion.

Plus, there is the testosterone filled pissing contest of hunters trying to be more macho than the other guys which brings in record book organizations which often have a number of rules about how an animal must be taken to qualify.

edit: I should also point out that many of the modern ideas of hunting ethics are based on politics and a desire to have a positive public image with non-hunters out of the fear that hunters might give anti-hunters fodder to ban hunting. However, I don't think there are nearly enough anti-hunters in the US to ban any hunting in our lifetimes. Most of the time when a hunting season, technique or animal is banned it is hunters who are pushing the ban for their own selfish reasons. Ironically, the biggest threat to the freedom to hunt is hunters.

The basic idea is how "sporting" the event is. It's interesting to think about the genesis of the idea...maybe just the innate human preference for fair play? Because hunting really is play to most modern hunters. Obviously it isn't play to the critters.

Maybe, psychologically, it's about suffering to achieve your goal...like, if you don't suffer at all in your hunt then the victory isn't as fulfilling?

The modern concept of fair chase originated in the late 1800's as a number of animal populations were getting low due to over hunting. There were no laws in regard to hunting at all. Some hunters recognized that it was necessary to manage the populations of game animals so they created hunting clubs like the Boone & Crockett club for the purpose of encouraging good wildlife management practices. Such clubs encouraged ethics primarily designed to minimize the effect of hunting on game populations such as encouraging the shooting of mature males, avoiding hunting during times of the year the game animals are birthing, limiting the number of animals taken, taking care of the ecosystem etc.

In the early 1900's states started passing laws to regulate hunting seasons, game limits etc. and began to actively manage game populations. Since then the concept has evolved and is mostly a hodgepodge of personal ideas of fairness that can vary wildly depending on where you are. For example, many hunters in northern states consider it unethical to hunt turkeys with a dog, while in south eastern states it is a generally accepted practice. Having hunted turkeys both with and without a dog, I believe it is significantly harder to hunt with the dog simply because of the amount of time and effort that is spent training the dog- which is very enjoyable but a lot more complex than teaching the dog basic commands like "sit" "stay" "here". Yet hunting turkeys with dogs remains illegal in most states.

In my experience, most hunters get their sense of fair chase from whoever taught them how to hunt and are simply convinced that their way is the right way and anything else is unfair. Since the original rational purpose for hunting ethics has become pointless with hunting regulations, hunting ethics have become increasingly irrational. And like any irrational ideas, they get defended and pushed aggressively by people who think they are right but can never answer the question of "why?" with anything other than an appeal to emotion.

Plus, there is the testosterone filled pissing contest of hunters trying to be more macho than the other guys which brings in record book organizations which often have a number of rules about how an animal must be taken to qualify.

edit: I should also point out that many of the modern ideas of hunting ethics are based on politics and a desire to have a positive public image with non-hunters out of the fear that hunters might give anti-hunters fodder to ban hunting. However, I don't think there are nearly enough anti-hunters in the US to ban any hunting in our lifetimes. Most of the time when a hunting season, technique or animal is banned it is hunters who are pushing the ban for their own selfish reasons. Ironically, the biggest threat to the freedom to hunt is hunters.

Hm... A couple of comments.

In the north west US, there is a ban on hunting cougar with dogs. I have listened to the arguments for and against. And frankly, I don't have a firm opinion. The big cats are much more dangerous than the coyotes that live in my neighborhood. And like coyotes, they have a fondness for people's pet dogs and cats. Easy pickings. Cougars are also very dangerous to hunt as they are capable of going up a tree and coming down on unsuspecting hikers and small children. There was a child that was at a school bus stop with some other children that was taken by a cougar. Everyone was all upset as I remember. (I'll hunt up news articles if anyone insists. It was some years ago near Spokane, WA.) But the child was a little apart from the group in a heavily wooded fairly new subdivision. If you want to live where the wild animals are, you need to be cautious.

(As for coyotes, I live in the middle of a suburban sprawl, the Portland Metro area. The Metro area is in three different counties. My house is near a arroyo, or small ravine I guess would be another description, that has natural springs and a small creek and no houses in the actual arroyo. So, we have raccoons, herons, hawks, and coyotes in the middle of town and darn few feral cats.)

My father-in-law used to hunt deer a lot during the depression as an addition to the family larder. He said the simplest way was to get up in a tree above a deer trail. Shoot down into the back of the head/neck as the deer pass under you. The way their neck is articulated, they can't look up. I have never tried this, so I can not vouch for the veracity.

The last venison we had, the deer was hit by a pickup right in front of us. The driver didn't stop. We did. One of the large arteries in the neck had been severed and one leg was crushed. Most of the deer was usable. I like venison, but like Mellestad, it is serious work to go hunting, so we do without. PS, Oregon has one of the lamest laws. Road kill must be examined by a sheriff's deputy before being slaughtered for human consumption. Fine, if you are reselling the meat. Dumb, because it can take more than a day for a deputy to show up for a non-emergency. And more than a day before butchering? No thanks.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken

"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Ayn Rand

In the north west US, there is a ban on hunting cougar with dogs. I have listened to the arguments for and against. And frankly, I don't have a firm opinion. The big cats are much more dangerous than the coyotes that live in my neighborhood. And like coyotes, they have a fondness for people's pet dogs and cats. Easy pickings. Cougars are also very dangerous to hunt as they are capable of going up a tree and coming down on unsuspecting hikers and small children. There was a child that was at a school bus stop with some other children that was taken by a cougar. Everyone was all upset as I remember. (I'll hunt up news articles if anyone insists. It was some years ago near Spokane, WA.) But the child was a little apart from the group in a heavily wooded fairly new subdivision. If you want to live where the wild animals are, you need to be cautious.

(As for coyotes, I live in the middle of a suburban sprawl, the Portland Metro area. The Metro area is in three different counties. My house is near a arroyo, or small ravine I guess would be another description, that has natural springs and a small creek and no houses in the actual arroyo. So, we have raccoons, herons, hawks, and coyotes in the middle of town and darn few feral cats.)

My father-in-law used to hunt deer a lot during the depression as an addition to the family larder. He said the simplest way was to get up in a tree above a deer trail. Shoot down into the back of the head/neck as the deer pass under you. The way their neck is articulated, they can't look up. I have never tried this, so I can not vouch for the veracity.

The last venison we had, the deer was hit by a pickup right in front of us. The driver didn't stop. We did. One of the large arteries in the neck had been severed and one leg was crushed. Most of the deer was usable. I like venison, but like Mellestad, it is serious work to go hunting, so we do without. PS, Oregon has one of the lamest laws. Road kill must be examined by a sheriff's deputy before being slaughtered for human consumption. Fine, if you are reselling the meat. Dumb, because it can take more than a day for a deputy to show up for a non-emergency. And more than a day before butchering? No thanks.

The one time I went cougar hunting in Arizona we used dogs to tree the cougar. I will probably never do it again, it just wasn't my thing but I am glad I had the experience. It was certainly a very physically demanding hunt, keeping up with running dogs in mountainous terrain is not easy. Most hunters are of the belief that killing a cougar without dogs is virtually impossible, which is why I am kind of attracted to the idea of trying. But the statistics indicate that without using dogs hunters have a less than 1% chance of filling their tag. But yeah, they are dangerous critters, you have a 200 pound cat that likes to eat meat.

As for the deer, hunting from a tree stand is definitely the most common method, however it is an old wives tale that deer can't look up. A deer can spot you in a treestand just fine. No problems with the neck whatsoever. Deer do have less reason to look up than to look at the ground, but if anything is out of the ordinary, like a scent or sound they will look up. Personally, I hate treestands because they are uncomfortable, cold and boring.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X

The one time I went cougar hunting in Arizona we used dogs to tree the cougar. I will probably never do it again, it just wasn't my thing but I am glad I had the experience. It was certainly a very physically demanding hunt, keeping up with running dogs in mountainous terrain is not easy. Most hunters are of the belief that killing a cougar without dogs is virtually impossible, which is why I am kind of attracted to the idea of trying. But the statistics indicate that without using dogs hunters have a less than 1% chance of filling their tag. But yeah, they are dangerous critters, you have a 200 pound cat that likes to eat meat.

As for the deer, hunting from a tree stand is definitely the most common method, however it is an old wives tale that deer can't look up. A deer can spot you in a treestand just fine. No problems with the neck whatsoever. Deer do have less reason to look up than to look at the ground, but if anything is out of the ordinary, like a scent or sound they will look up. Personally, I hate treestands because they are uncomfortable, cold and boring.

Always knew my father-in-law was full of shit. Well, he can't defend himself now, so I'll let it go. Thanks for the pics.

The cougar argument around here has to do with dummies building swanky houses out in the forests and then getting all upset when the cougar - who was living there first - comes to help itself to lunch. Leave your dog out all night in an unroofed kennel at your own risk.

Same nonsense with forest fires. You build your house in the middle of a forest that is fire ecology (evolved to burn regularly), and there will be forest fires. Stack your firewood next to the house at your own risk. Don't take down overhanging trees or bushes near the house at your own risk. Don't do controlled burns on your property during damp times of the year --- at your own risk.

Bad fires around the area are causing really nasty air quality at the moment. Friend traveled from Oregon to Montana this week and the smoke haze never let up.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken

"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.

This entire thread you have been crying about how much suffering there is in the world and if people ceased existing that would eliminate suffering. So sticking to your stated morality

P1- suffering is bad and should be avoided at any cost

P2- people cause suffering by existing

C1- Therefore, it is best if people cease existing.

Which brings about

P1- it is best if people cease existing

P2- you are a person

C2- therefore, it is best if you stop existing

Where is the logic wrong?

It's wrong at the point where you pretend I don't take the positive into account. I've explained it countless times now that the positive matters when we consider the treatment of existing people, and I've made an argument why it does not justify the creation of new people, which are in fact two separate things despite your refusal to deal with that.

Quote:

Believe it. I have zero ethical qualms with eating a hamburger. We have already established that you think I am an immoral asshole. Thanks for the A+.

Right, so it doesn't matter how petty the human gain (or even if there's any gain at all) or how massive the amount of animal suffering, we can just do whatever we want to them and it's not even relevant to ethics at all, this is your argument. If it means you get one more lollipop in your life then torturing a few billion animals is totally worth it. I don't think A+ even covers what a cunt you have to be to think this.

mellestad wrote:

It's interesting, because you're arguing from an ethical standpoint. Ethics is a logical thing, if it wasn't logical then it isn't ethics, it's just preference.

Demonstrate the logical inconsistency in holding sentient welfare as the ethical axiom and accepting AN. You've had countless opportunities to explain why imposing life is a good thing, or why the asymmetry doesn't work, etc. You haven't done any of that.

Quote:

If you were on here saying that AN was your preference, and you would prefer people didn't have kids and you didn't want to have kids, I'd be fine with it.

That's not AN, that's just not wanting kids. AN is the ethical stance that procreation is wrong. Quite obviously if I consider it to be ethically wrong if I do it, then it's also wrong if you do it.

Quote:

No problems. You can do whatever you want and prefer whatever you want.

No, I really, really can't. I can't come to your house and stick a shovel up your ass, that's what ethics is about ffs.

Quote:

But you aren't doing that, you're making a claim that AN is a logical, ethical thing to do. That's where this kind of thing points out the absurdity of claiming AN is based on logic or ethics, because a group of AN folks can't even agree on why they do what they do. It isn't, it's just a preference justified after the fact, at least as near as I can tell.

Right, so if I say you can't rape someone because then she'll be late for the bus, and someone else says you're gonna royally fuck up her life, well then since us anti-rape people are sooooo inconsistent, obviously you don't have to take the subject seriously and can go around raping as much as you want. Idiotic mush as usual.

Quote:

And me pointing this out is a fallacy, but I've already argued against why I think AN, as communicated, is illogical in it's conclusions. Hell, if An just said new life = bad, then your conclusions about no new life would be logical. It's the part where you try to bring suffering in as the reason for saying new life = bad that fails, because of what you do and don't do with that premise.

Guess what, AN is in fact just saying new life = bad, so you just admitted AN is correct. Kthxbai.

Quote:

At this point, honestly, I'm just poking you with a stick for giggles though.

Yeah because concentration camps and cancer in the balls are such great topics to just lol around with, not worth taking seriously at all.

Frank says it's wrong because he never wanted cake, and you can't force him to eat it, so there.

Mary sue says it's OK to eat cake if you already have cake, but you can't make cake, or ask for cake, because then that would be wrong.

Barbara says she'd throw the cake away, but then she'd feel bad about wasting it, so she might as well eat it, but she won't like eating it.

Bob says cake is bad because some people don't get good cake sometimes, so no-one should eat cake ever again.

That group of people just doesn't like cake. Any argument that tries to justify their personal, subjective preference to dislike cake with a complex logical/ethical argument is probably horseshit.

Yeah, this is a fair analogy /facepalm. Lemme fix it for you:

Ohai, we're the pro-cakists. We baked this cool mystery cake that could taste like strawberries and chocolate, or it could taste like maggots and shit. No one actually has any need or desire to eat this cake, so we have to force it into people's mouths. The cake also has the extra cool effect of making you addicted to it once you taste it, and fills you with terrible dread at the thought of not eating more (even though the cake necessarily runs out for everyone). We think force feeding the cake to others is totally fine because we got lucky and got a chocolate tasting part of the cake, so even though we risk basically shitting into your mouth when we force you to eat the cake, we're gonna do it anyway. If anyone tries to argue that maybe we shouldn't do that, we're just gonna call them emo (which is totally not just shooting the messenger, it's serious logic man, for reals). Aren't we just great people!

harleysportster wrote:

While I stated that I could not find a specific AN page. I was wrong. This organization called VHEMT (Voluntary Human Extermination Movement)

Most people identifying as AN don't stop with humans so I wouldn't exactly call them an AN group (like you said, these guys don't even call themselves ANs).

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Ayn Rand

It's wrong at the point where you pretend I don't take the positive into account. I've explained it countless times now that the positive matters when we consider the treatment of existing people, and I've made an argument why it does not justify the creation of new people, which are in fact two separate things despite your refusal to deal with that.

Manageri wrote:

Manageri wrote:

GodsUseForAMosquito wrote:

Finally, your position as I understand it is that global wellbeing is at a negative level, and so the best that it can be is neutral, which means no sentient life.

Yeah but it really doesn't matter. Even if we had 7 billion awesome lives and one dungeon victim, there still would have been absolutely no necessity to create those 7 billion and so using that one dungeon victim's torture as fuel for their party is wrong.

You have been arguing all along that even great amounts of pleasure cannot cancel out suffering. The only point I have seen you take positive into account is when there are two options and one leads to less suffering than the other.

Then you have,

Manageri wrote:

But you do condone creating people who will hate your guts for it and wish they'd never been born. When you impose risk on someone else it's your fucking job to explain why that imposition is acceptable, you have yet to make any argument defending that.

This was in response to CJ on page 6 and she was basically arguing that risk is a part of life, get over it. Many people pointed out that most people don't live the horrible suffering lives in dungeons and most people like life. Your response has consistently been to the effect "but there is a statistical risk of blah blah blah (enter absurdly horrible scenario here)" Which is true, there is always a risk of something horrible happening.

So you exist, necessarily your existence brings about a certain chance of causing something horrible to happen. Perhaps someone will read your arguments and be inspired to be the next Hitler, or maybe you will be walking down the street and distract someone causing a horrible car accident in which someone ends up paralyzed, the brain tumor whatever. I think we can agree that your existence poses some level of risk to other people even if you are very careful. So why is that imposition acceptable? Especially since it is rather obvious that you don't consider much to be positive about your own life.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X